


Little Beast

by nereid



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-14
Updated: 2014-04-14
Packaged: 2018-01-19 09:21:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1464064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nereid/pseuds/nereid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(Set between seasons 5 and 6.) Some nights are worse than others. It sounds easy, manageable enough, put in a simple sentence like that. But those nights, it's not.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Little Beast

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a ficathon, the prompt was: don't try too hard to think, don't think at all.

_That's a nice touch, stains in the night, whiskey and kisses for everyone._  
Richard Siken

 

 

_What're you doing, Nibblet?_

_Thinking._

_Never got me anyplace I wanted to be._

 

 

Some nights are worse than others. It sounds easy, manageable enough, put in a simple sentence like that. But those nights, it's not.

 

 

Those nights are when she gives up, and those nights are when she fights the hardest to stay alive. It depends on where you're standing, though.

 

 

_I miss her_ , she writes in her diary, sitting on her bed. She tears the page into shreds immediately.

 

This is the only sound in this house that was once a home.

 

 

She knows he watches her sometimes. Sometimes when she watches her it's the stare that a man saves for his epic love's little sister, the sister that he promised to look after.

 

Other times, she thinks it's not.

 

 

She can hear sounds downstairs again tonight, and she knows it's Spike. There's the drag of his boots on their hardwood floors, the opening of the kitchen door, because Willow won't let him smoke inside, and she imagines hearing a sigh, because that would almost be an invitation to go downstairs and join him.

 

Mostly, she just focuses on not running and falling down the stairs.

 

_I bet this is not the kind of forever you had in mind_ , she says and smiles and bites her lip, because she's a 15 year old girl and her sister just died, okay, and she's allowed to bite her lip if she wants to.

 

He turns around to face her, cigarette smoke surrounding his face, _you are beautiful_ , she thinks, but she doesn't say anything. It's his turn now. Or at least it should be. 

 

But then he says nothing so she sits down next to him anyway, because she knows she wouldn't want to sit alone on the porch, when she could sit with someone, with someone she _liked_.

 

_You miss her_ , she says. 

_How would I not?_

She nods. _I know. I miss her too. Maybe we could help each other. To miss her less._ She says none of those things. 

 

( _You think too much_ , he would tell her.)

 

Instead, she kisses his cheek and leaves him to sit alone. 

 

 

Some nights, she thinks of him. (All nights, if she's being honest.) Mostly not even about him in her bed, or eternal love, or things like that. She thinks of kisses on the cheek, _you're fun to be around, Little Bit_ , and secretly sharing cigarettes when Willow and Tara fall asleep. 

 

 

She's sitting in her bed again, when she hears him come into the house. She counts in her head, onetwothreefourfive, and then comes out of her room, down the stairs. 

 

_You're drunk_ , she says. He's sitting on the couch, a bottle of something she guesses is cheap whiskey in his lap. 

_Amnot_ , he slurs. She laughs, but just a bit. 

 

She walks to him and sits on the coffee table. Neither of them speaks, she just sits and stares at him and he stares at something, and she thinks _I still think you're beautiful_. 

 

(But then she remembers, thinking never got her anywhere.)

 

She leans closer, pulls the bottle out of his lap and before he thinks to stop her, gulps down the rest of the bottle. (Which, admittedly, was not much.)

 

_What are you doing?_

_Not thinking._

 

She kisses him. He kisses her back.


End file.
